The present invention relates to a microwave junction circulator including a microwave junction zone which is penetrated by a static magnetic field, with a ferromagnetic resonator composed of different dielectric media being disposed at the microwave junction zone, at least one of the different dielectric media having ferromagnetic characteristics.
A microwave circulator is a coupling device having a number of ports for connection to microwave transmission lines, such as waveguides or striplines. Microwave energy entering one port of the circulator is transferred to the next adjacent port in a predetermined direction. A threeport microwave circulator, for example, may be used to transfer energy from a klystron connected to the first port to a particle accelerator connected to the second port. Any microwave energy reflected back to the circulator by the particle accelerator then exits via the third port, so that the reflected energy is diverted from the klystron.
Circulators which have ferromagnetic resonators in their microwave junction zones and which were designed specifically for very high power, high-frequency applications are disclosed by Fumiaki Okada et al in the publications, IEEE Transactins on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. MTT-26, No. 5, May, 1978, pages 364-369, and IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. MAG-17, No. 6, November, 1981, pages 2957-2960. In the circulators described in these publications, the ferrite structure is composed of a plurality of ferrite discs which are separated from one another by air gaps and which are arranged perpendicularly to the static magnetic field on metal carriers through which flows a coolant.